Commenting on Comments
**** Sharing an entry from another of my diaries that's a response to a commenter in another persons diary ... it's all rather confusing! But I've really no patience for ignorant people who have no problem spreading it around. So, I figured I'd spread my stuff around as a sort of balance in nature. ;) ****
It seems I've more time to read than write of late but some comments just need addressing.
I'm not interested in an argument or a heated debate. Just want to toss my two cents worth in and stand back to see if anyone has more, or better, information than I do.
In addition, I'm not out to change anyone's mind about their beliefs or 'convert' them to my pantheistic views. I simply don't care what others believe, it's personal, but when they prod for a debate based on assertions and beliefs rather than facts, I take umbrage. So if you want to believe the earth or sun is young go ahead. But it is just a belief, to offer up false facts to support that belief is just wrong; a wrong that needs correcting.
This began with an innocent comment in my previous post from someone new to my diary so I went to hers his and there, I found a comment from another diarist. It's to this other diarist that I address my comment (below). I've included hers his, then my response. Just for shits 'n giggles I put it here so if I've erred in my calculations there's a chance someone will be able to correct them. With facts.
.......
My apologies, Karamisdvine, for taking up so much space in your comment section to address spiritsfire's comments. I will post this at hers his site as well as an entry in mine, to open it up to others to discuss as they wish. It seems spirits is keen on an answer and while I'm sure you can and should speak for yourself on this issue, I felt compelled to say something at this time. I suspect this sort of debate isn't the purpose of your diary. You are free to delete this comment. :) So, to spiritsfire's comments of:
Here is the problem; there are far too many points against evolution. The greatest being that there is no way that the earth could be over ten thousand years old. I mean, if you think about the fact that the sun is in a constant state of fluctuation, gaining and losing mass but losing 5 tons an hour more than it gains back then if the sun were even close to as old as the earth supposedly is then adding back all of that mass it would have had too of been huge when the earth first formed, so big that there would be no Mercury or Venus.
Then there is the earth's magnetic layer, the further back you go the stronger it gets. But going back as little as 20,000 and the magnetic layer is too strong for there to be any life on earth.
There is far more evidence but I think this is a good start.
Then later:
The thing is that I have deeply studied evolution for many years and that is how I know that it is false and I wonder that if you had all of the facts if you would still feel the same way? But if you aren’t interested in a debate then I will leave it at that.
I respond ...
The problem actually is that if you've "deeply studied evolution for many years" you've either wasted time and money or, you've not been looking at the scientific aspects of evolution. It appears, from reading your comments, that you're spouting antiquated, narrow-minded information as would be handed out by an ancient pastor from his dry-rotted pulpit.
You can't expect to have a debate on evolution if you're not willing or able to provide support for your point of view. All you've done is state your belief that the sun couldn't be older than 10,000 years, but you've not offered anything to support that statement. You've written it like it's something that you've thought up and, after exhaustive years of searching, could find no expert who could dispute you and your assertions when, in fact, what you've stated are standard xtian claims whipped out almost verbatim by those wishing to blind others with bullshite rather than dazzle them with facts.
Let's start with your greatest point against evolution. Not that the sun has anything to do with the evolutionary processes per se; it has more to do with what fundamentalists are most concerned ... creation. If the numbers and facts can be either twisted or totally ignored to show a young earth then certainly evolution didn't, nay .. couldn't! .. happen.
Let's visit our star, the Sun. It roughly has the total mass of 1.99 x 1030 kg (the superscript, 30 in this case, means the number 10 is followed by 30 zeros: 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000). This makes the total number of hydrogen nuclei in the sun about 8.7 x 1056 (1.99 x 1030/ 100 x 4.36 x 1028). The number of helium nuclei is about 7.5 x 1055 (1.99 x 1030 / 100 x 3.76 x 1027).
The mass of hydrogen consumed every year is about 1.84 x 1019 kg and since the total mass of the sun is 1.99 x 1030, and about 73% of this is hydrogen, it follows that the maximum duration of the conversion of hydrogen into helium at the present rate is .73 x 1.99 x 1030 over 1.84 x 1019 years which equals 7.9 x 1010 years.
This is not an exact number, I agree; it is an estimate because it assumes that all of the hydrogen currently in the sun will undergo conversion and it also makes use of a result that is itself an estimate. Regardless, the answer is sound, especially for our purposes here. More precise estimates of the suns hydrogen-fuelled lifetime gives a figure of about 1010 years and with the sun estimated to be 4.5 x 109 years old, it's considered to be a middle-aged star.
As for the luminosity of the sun, it's estimated at 3.84 x 1026 J s-1. With about 3.16 x 107 seconds in one year, it follows that the annual energy output of the sun (E) is about 1.21 x 1034 J. Assuming this energy is entirely supplied by the loss of mass from the suns core, it follows that the mass lost per year is: m = E/C2 = 1.21 x 1034 J / (3.00 x 108 ms-1)2 = 1.34 x 1017 kg. This means the sun is losing mass at the rate of 4.25 x 109 kilograms per second and will lose about 1027 kg in its hydrogen-burning lifetime; which is to say it will lose about .05% of its mass. This is a very small amount and in no way demonstrates that in the distant past the sun would be so massive as to engulf Mercury and Venus. These facts show the sun has not changed significantly during its lifetime thus far.
So I'm not sure where you're getting the basis for your statement because you failed to site your source. In addition, you have your facts wrong. The sun fuses four hydrogen nuclei to make one helium nucleus. Because one helium nucleus contains 0.7 % less mass than four hydrogen nuclei, it seems that some mass vanishes in the process. In fact, that mass is converted to energy and you could figure out how much by using Einstein's equation, E = mc2 .
Creating one helium nucleus makes only a small amount of energy (barely enough to raise a housefly .001 inch into the air). Only by concentrating many reactions in a small area can nature produce significant results. A single kilogram (2.2 lbs.) of hydrogen converted entirely to energy would produce enough power to raise an average-sized mountain 10 km (6 miles). The sun has a large energy appetite and needs 1038 reactions per second and transforms 5 MILLION tons (not 5 tons) of mass into energy every second. It does this to balance its own gravity. It only sounds like the sun is losing its mass at a fast and furious rate but in its 10-billion-year lifetime the sun will convert less than .07 % of its mass into energy. The sun produces a lot of energy because it contains a LOT of grams of matter in its core.
Look at it this way, the fusion of a milligram of hydrogen (about the size of a matchstick head) produces as much energy as burning 30 gallons of gasoline. However, the nuclear reactions in the sun are spread through a large volume in its core, and any single gram of matter produces little energy. To put this on a more understandable scale, a person of normal mass eating a normal diet produces about 4,000 times more heat per gram than the matter in the core of the sun; the sun produces a lot of energy because it contains a lot of grams of matter in its core.
I suggest you read current science textbooks such as Horizons: Exploring the Universe, by Michael A. Seeds and An Introduction to the Sun and Stars by Mark S. F. Green, which are my sources for this comment. Or you could simply google the sun losing mass and find many sites that will instruct you on the facts.
As for the earth's magnetic layer I offer this link: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html#magnetic
Here you will find, and I quote:
"The young-Earth argument: the dipole component of the magnetic field has decreased slightly over the time that it has been measured. Assuming the generally accepted "dynamo theory" for the existence of the Earth's magnetic field is wrong, the mechanism might instead be an initially created field which has been losing strength ever since the creation event. An exponential fit (assuming a half-life of 1400 years on 130 years' worth of measurements) yields an impossibly high magnetic field even 8000 years ago, therefore the Earth must be young. The main proponent of this argument was Thomas Barnes.
There are several things wrong with this "dating" mechanism. It's hard to just list them all. The primary four are:
That last part is more important than it may sound. The Earth's magnetic field is often split in two components when measured. The "dipole" component is the part which approximates a theoretically perfect field around a single magnet, and the "nondipole" components are the ("messy") remainder. A study in the 1960s showed that the decrease in the dipole component since the turn of the century had been nearly completely compensated by an increase in the strength of the nondipole components of the field. (In other words, the measurements show that the field has been diverging from the shape that would be expected of a theoretical ideal magnet, more than the amount of energy has actually been changing.) Barnes' extrapolation therefore does not really rest on the change in energy of the field."
If you are going to use science to prove your young earth creationist stance, at least get it right. Though not giving accurate information, I suspect, is the only way to adhere to your point of view. Which is fine, you're entitled to your p.o.v. but you're not entitled to pass it out under the guise of science, fact, or truth to convince others. The earth is extremely old (by our short-lived standards), as is the sun, the solar system, and the entire cosmos .. denying facts doesn’t change them. It didn’t change a 'round' earth to a flat one or cause planets to align so the sun revolves around earth.
Evolution is a matter of fact; the processes by which it happened and continues to happen, continue to be revised and changed according to evidence found and updated.
*Edited as spiritsfire is male, not female. (hers) My apologies for the error.
It seems I've more time to read than write of late but some comments just need addressing.
I'm not interested in an argument or a heated debate. Just want to toss my two cents worth in and stand back to see if anyone has more, or better, information than I do.
In addition, I'm not out to change anyone's mind about their beliefs or 'convert' them to my pantheistic views. I simply don't care what others believe, it's personal, but when they prod for a debate based on assertions and beliefs rather than facts, I take umbrage. So if you want to believe the earth or sun is young go ahead. But it is just a belief, to offer up false facts to support that belief is just wrong; a wrong that needs correcting.
This began with an innocent comment in my previous post from someone new to my diary so I went to hers his and there, I found a comment from another diarist. It's to this other diarist that I address my comment (below). I've included hers his, then my response. Just for shits 'n giggles I put it here so if I've erred in my calculations there's a chance someone will be able to correct them. With facts.
.......
My apologies, Karamisdvine, for taking up so much space in your comment section to address spiritsfire's comments. I will post this at hers his site as well as an entry in mine, to open it up to others to discuss as they wish. It seems spirits is keen on an answer and while I'm sure you can and should speak for yourself on this issue, I felt compelled to say something at this time. I suspect this sort of debate isn't the purpose of your diary. You are free to delete this comment. :) So, to spiritsfire's comments of:
Here is the problem; there are far too many points against evolution. The greatest being that there is no way that the earth could be over ten thousand years old. I mean, if you think about the fact that the sun is in a constant state of fluctuation, gaining and losing mass but losing 5 tons an hour more than it gains back then if the sun were even close to as old as the earth supposedly is then adding back all of that mass it would have had too of been huge when the earth first formed, so big that there would be no Mercury or Venus.
Then there is the earth's magnetic layer, the further back you go the stronger it gets. But going back as little as 20,000 and the magnetic layer is too strong for there to be any life on earth.
There is far more evidence but I think this is a good start.
Then later:
The thing is that I have deeply studied evolution for many years and that is how I know that it is false and I wonder that if you had all of the facts if you would still feel the same way? But if you aren’t interested in a debate then I will leave it at that.
I respond ...
The problem actually is that if you've "deeply studied evolution for many years" you've either wasted time and money or, you've not been looking at the scientific aspects of evolution. It appears, from reading your comments, that you're spouting antiquated, narrow-minded information as would be handed out by an ancient pastor from his dry-rotted pulpit.
You can't expect to have a debate on evolution if you're not willing or able to provide support for your point of view. All you've done is state your belief that the sun couldn't be older than 10,000 years, but you've not offered anything to support that statement. You've written it like it's something that you've thought up and, after exhaustive years of searching, could find no expert who could dispute you and your assertions when, in fact, what you've stated are standard xtian claims whipped out almost verbatim by those wishing to blind others with bullshite rather than dazzle them with facts.
Let's start with your greatest point against evolution. Not that the sun has anything to do with the evolutionary processes per se; it has more to do with what fundamentalists are most concerned ... creation. If the numbers and facts can be either twisted or totally ignored to show a young earth then certainly evolution didn't, nay .. couldn't! .. happen.
Let's visit our star, the Sun. It roughly has the total mass of 1.99 x 1030 kg (the superscript, 30 in this case, means the number 10 is followed by 30 zeros: 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000). This makes the total number of hydrogen nuclei in the sun about 8.7 x 1056 (1.99 x 1030/ 100 x 4.36 x 1028). The number of helium nuclei is about 7.5 x 1055 (1.99 x 1030 / 100 x 3.76 x 1027).
The mass of hydrogen consumed every year is about 1.84 x 1019 kg and since the total mass of the sun is 1.99 x 1030, and about 73% of this is hydrogen, it follows that the maximum duration of the conversion of hydrogen into helium at the present rate is .73 x 1.99 x 1030 over 1.84 x 1019 years which equals 7.9 x 1010 years.
This is not an exact number, I agree; it is an estimate because it assumes that all of the hydrogen currently in the sun will undergo conversion and it also makes use of a result that is itself an estimate. Regardless, the answer is sound, especially for our purposes here. More precise estimates of the suns hydrogen-fuelled lifetime gives a figure of about 1010 years and with the sun estimated to be 4.5 x 109 years old, it's considered to be a middle-aged star.
As for the luminosity of the sun, it's estimated at 3.84 x 1026 J s-1. With about 3.16 x 107 seconds in one year, it follows that the annual energy output of the sun (E) is about 1.21 x 1034 J. Assuming this energy is entirely supplied by the loss of mass from the suns core, it follows that the mass lost per year is: m = E/C2 = 1.21 x 1034 J / (3.00 x 108 ms-1)2 = 1.34 x 1017 kg. This means the sun is losing mass at the rate of 4.25 x 109 kilograms per second and will lose about 1027 kg in its hydrogen-burning lifetime; which is to say it will lose about .05% of its mass. This is a very small amount and in no way demonstrates that in the distant past the sun would be so massive as to engulf Mercury and Venus. These facts show the sun has not changed significantly during its lifetime thus far.
So I'm not sure where you're getting the basis for your statement because you failed to site your source. In addition, you have your facts wrong. The sun fuses four hydrogen nuclei to make one helium nucleus. Because one helium nucleus contains 0.7 % less mass than four hydrogen nuclei, it seems that some mass vanishes in the process. In fact, that mass is converted to energy and you could figure out how much by using Einstein's equation, E = mc2 .
Creating one helium nucleus makes only a small amount of energy (barely enough to raise a housefly .001 inch into the air). Only by concentrating many reactions in a small area can nature produce significant results. A single kilogram (2.2 lbs.) of hydrogen converted entirely to energy would produce enough power to raise an average-sized mountain 10 km (6 miles). The sun has a large energy appetite and needs 1038 reactions per second and transforms 5 MILLION tons (not 5 tons) of mass into energy every second. It does this to balance its own gravity. It only sounds like the sun is losing its mass at a fast and furious rate but in its 10-billion-year lifetime the sun will convert less than .07 % of its mass into energy. The sun produces a lot of energy because it contains a LOT of grams of matter in its core.
Look at it this way, the fusion of a milligram of hydrogen (about the size of a matchstick head) produces as much energy as burning 30 gallons of gasoline. However, the nuclear reactions in the sun are spread through a large volume in its core, and any single gram of matter produces little energy. To put this on a more understandable scale, a person of normal mass eating a normal diet produces about 4,000 times more heat per gram than the matter in the core of the sun; the sun produces a lot of energy because it contains a lot of grams of matter in its core.
I suggest you read current science textbooks such as Horizons: Exploring the Universe, by Michael A. Seeds and An Introduction to the Sun and Stars by Mark S. F. Green, which are my sources for this comment. Or you could simply google the sun losing mass and find many sites that will instruct you on the facts.
As for the earth's magnetic layer I offer this link: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-age-of-earth.html#magnetic
Here you will find, and I quote:
"The young-Earth argument: the dipole component of the magnetic field has decreased slightly over the time that it has been measured. Assuming the generally accepted "dynamo theory" for the existence of the Earth's magnetic field is wrong, the mechanism might instead be an initially created field which has been losing strength ever since the creation event. An exponential fit (assuming a half-life of 1400 years on 130 years' worth of measurements) yields an impossibly high magnetic field even 8000 years ago, therefore the Earth must be young. The main proponent of this argument was Thomas Barnes.
There are several things wrong with this "dating" mechanism. It's hard to just list them all. The primary four are:
- While there is no complete model to the geodynamo (certain key properties of the core are unknown), there are reasonable starts and there are no good reasons for rejecting such an entity out of hand. If it is possible for energy to be added to the field, then the extrapolation is useless.
- There is overwhelming evidence that the magnetic field has reversed itself, rendering any unidirectional extrapolation on total energy useless. Even some young-Earthers admit to that these days -- e.g., Humphreys (1988).
- Much of the energy in the field is almost certainly not even visible external to the core. This means that the extrapolation rests on the assumption that fluctuations in the observable portion of the field accurately represent fluctuations in its total energy.
- Barnes' extrapolation completely ignores the nondipole component of the field. Even if we grant that it is permissible to ignore portions of the field that are internal to the core, Barnes' extrapolation also ignores portions of the field which are visible and instead rests on extrapolation of a theoretical entity.
That last part is more important than it may sound. The Earth's magnetic field is often split in two components when measured. The "dipole" component is the part which approximates a theoretically perfect field around a single magnet, and the "nondipole" components are the ("messy") remainder. A study in the 1960s showed that the decrease in the dipole component since the turn of the century had been nearly completely compensated by an increase in the strength of the nondipole components of the field. (In other words, the measurements show that the field has been diverging from the shape that would be expected of a theoretical ideal magnet, more than the amount of energy has actually been changing.) Barnes' extrapolation therefore does not really rest on the change in energy of the field."
If you are going to use science to prove your young earth creationist stance, at least get it right. Though not giving accurate information, I suspect, is the only way to adhere to your point of view. Which is fine, you're entitled to your p.o.v. but you're not entitled to pass it out under the guise of science, fact, or truth to convince others. The earth is extremely old (by our short-lived standards), as is the sun, the solar system, and the entire cosmos .. denying facts doesn’t change them. It didn’t change a 'round' earth to a flat one or cause planets to align so the sun revolves around earth.
Evolution is a matter of fact; the processes by which it happened and continues to happen, continue to be revised and changed according to evidence found and updated.
*Edited as spiritsfire is male, not female. (hers) My apologies for the error.